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Materials evaluation plays an important role in language teaching as it helps practitioners to develop an awareness of the coverage and quality of the existing materials and as such, guides most instruction and revision decisions. Therefore, we sought to evaluate three English Vision textbooks exclusively written for Iranian secondary high school students through a comparison to the identical Interchange book series, the fifth edition. Following a model of nominal groups outlined here, the evaluation targeted the quantity and quality of the groups appearing in the two series as they are assumed to be an important part of authentic language. For the quantitative part, the results indicated a significantly higher use of nominal groups in the Interchange series. Similarly, in the qualitative analyses, we found higher quality nominal groups appearing in the Interchange books. The findings revealed inadequate inclusion of nominal groups' potentially useful structures in the Vision textbooks, supposed to help teachers to raise an awareness so as to come up with appropriate instructional policies, and the textbook developers to consider the findings when any revision is due.

The focus of this paper is to determine the extent to which changes in the ideological frameworks took place after 2003 when the removal of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist dictatorship set up a democratic system for Iraq. Using the frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis, more specifically Fairclough's three-dimensional model and van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach, this study conducts a critical investigation into the reframing of national identity, ideological structures, and religious themes in presidential discourse. This article provides an overview of the major ways in which the Iraqi presidents have used language in an attempt to redefine national unity, balance references to Islam, and build legitimacy in light of continuing political transitions. The most important findings provide substantial shifts away from the authoritarian themes and toward inclusiveness, with each administration changing its speech to adjust to the increasingly complex sociopolitical situation. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the role that discourse plays for state-building as a process and to develop a model of political communication after a conflict. The most important findings provide substantial shifts away from the authoritarian themes and toward inclusiveness, with each administration changing its speech to adjust to the increasingly complex sociopolitical situation. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the role that discourse plays for state-building as a process and to develop a model of political communication after a conflict.

Previous studies have focused mostly on the syntactic features of the linking particle (Ezafe) in simple noun phrases with little attention paid to its semantic representations and functions specifically within the context of deverbal noun phrases. The present study aims to analyze semantic functions of the linking particle as it appears between a deverbal noun and its various modifiers, and compare them with their corresponding elements in sentences in a Distributed Morphology framework (DM) in Hawrami. This study shows this ancient linker's trace in most Kurdish dialects exhibits agentive semantic functions in addition to expressing possession and modification. Furthermore, the subject of unaccusative verbs at the sentential level is realized as the patient/possessor or as the theme/possessor of their corresponding deverbal noun phrases. However, the subject of unergative verbs assumes the agentive/possessor role in their corresponding noun phrases. Moreover, the object of transitive and ditransitive verbs is represented as a patient or theme, and also as a possessed entity before the subject is realized as the possessor in the corresponding deverbal noun phrases. Results indicate that the representation of both sentences and their corresponding deverbal noun phrases within DM framework provides stronger support for a syntactic movement account of deverbal noun phrases, their semantic functions, and properties in Hawrami.

In recent years, technology-mediated collaborative writing has received great attention in the research literature. The purpose of the present study is to compare the effects of online collaborative writing using Google Docs and individual writing in a face-to-face conventional classroom on the writing performance of Iranian EFL learners. To this aim, a sample of 32 homogeneous intermediate learners was selected as the study's participants. They were then randomly divided into an experimental group (N = 16) and a control group (N = 16). Then, the experimental group participants performed online collaborative writing using Google Docs while the control group fulfilled individual papers in the face-to-face classroom. Two writing tasks by the students were employed to gather the data. Later, data were analyzed through paired-sample t-tests to investigate differences in writing in each group. Finally, ANCOVA was used to investigate the difference in writing performance between the two groups. This study added further insights concerning the contribution of Google Docs in technological research in technology-mediated collaborative writing and provided some pertinent pedagogical implications

This study aims to investigate the role of first language literacy and reading habits in L2 development. the researcher invited a group of 97 pre-intermediate and intermediate learners from various schools to participate in this study. They were asked to take part in two L1 tests (L1 reading comprehension and L1 spelling) as well as an L2 achievement test. Correlation was used to find the possible relation between L1 literacy and L2 development and in order to find out which of the two subcomponents of L1 literacy can better predict L2 development, regression was used. The findings show that there is a meaningful relationship between L1 literacy and L2 development. Both reading comprehension and spelling knowledge of L1 can lead to L2 development; the statistics revealed that both can preferably lead to L2 development and L2 literacy. But in this study, reading comprehension has the strongest impact on L2 development.

Rooted in the Cognitive Load (CL) and Dual Coding theories, this sequential explanatory study examined the CL levels experienced by 36 available Iranian pre-intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in auditory and visual Phonemic Awareness Tasks (PATs). The PATs focused on 'th' sound variations that were specifically challenging for Persian speakers of English. Participants were divided into two equal groups. The first group underwent auditory and visual PATs (i.e., picture sorting and word discrimination). The second group faced auditory PATs only (i.e., rhyme recognition and sound isolation) structured around voiced and voiceless ‘th’ sounds. In the qualitative phase, 8 participants were randomly interviewed to discover the potential reasons behind various levels of CL measured in certain PATs. A Virtual Reality (VR) cognitive pupillometry analysis was performed for two groups in an immersive VR environment using VR Head-Mounted Displays (VR-HMDs) and Tobii Nexus software, followed by thematic analysis. GazeMetrics strategies were employed to validate and ensure the reliability of the data collection process. The quantitative results demonstrated (a) no critical differences regarding the CL experienced by the participants in each group concerning voiced vs. voiceless’ th’ PATs and (b) higher levels of CL (increased pupil diameter, decreased blink rates, and increased gaze pattern or fixation duration) among participants in the auditory PATs group compared to the ones in the auditory and visual PATs group. Besides, qualitative findings identified the following factors as the most probable causes of the observed differences in CL levels among participants: (a) segmental differences, (b) phonological transfer, (c) phonological fossilization, (d) working memory constraints, (e) cognitive flexibility, and (f) task delivery methods. This study contributes to cognitive phonology, phonological processing, perceptual-motor language functions, and English material development.

Assessing learners’ writing is one of the primary responsibilities of English language teachers. Nevertheless, research on teachers’ writing assessment literacy (WAL) is scarce. To this end, this study a) explored Iraqi Kurdish EFL teachers’ writing assessment knowledge, beliefs, and practices and b) examined assessment strategies they employ to assess learners’ writing ability and the feedback they provide on learners’ writing performance. Data were collected from language teachers in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (N=80), who taught at universities, institutes, and schools, utilizing a modified version of the WAL questionnaire consisting of five sections, including teachers’ demographic information, assessment strategies, knowledge of WAL, beliefs about WAL, and practices concerning WAL. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a group of volunteer teachers (N=10). The findings highlighted teachers’ insufficient knowledge of writing assessments. A significant mismatch was found between teachers’ stated beliefs and their practices in the use of formative and summative assessment. The teachers had positive beliefs toward formative assessment; however, they preferred using summative assessment. The qualitative findings further pointed to a significant knowledge gap among teachers regarding specific terminologies, such as formative and summative assessment, as well as scoring rubrics. Finally, the results indicated that teachers used various feedback types to improve learners’ writing skills. The findings emphasize the need to improve teachers’ writing assessment literacy in order to bridge the gap between teachers’ beliefs and their practices of writing assessment.  

Feeling anxiety and technostress can have harmful effects on EFL learners' language learning. On the other hand, having high academic enjoyment (AE) can generate positive impacts on English language learning. Concerning the psychological variables' role in English language learning, this investigation inspected the effects of digital literacy (DL) on technostress, foreign language anxiety (FLA), AE, and language achievement. To meet this objective, 70 intermediate subjects were selected and divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). Next, the pre-tests of technostress, FLA, AE, and language learning achievement were administered to both groups. After that, the EG was taught the coursebook using technology. DL was also focused on it, and the students were trained to apply technology when learning new English materials. On the other hand, the same lessons were taught to the CG applying a traditional method. After teaching all classes, the mentioned scales were administered as the posttests of the study. The results of the One-way ANCOVA test indicated that the EG outdid the CG in the four posttests, implying that using DL reduced the anxiety and technostress of the EG but increased their AE. The ramifications of this investigation can inspire both EFL learners and educators to apply digital tools and technology in English learning and teaching.

Research article (RA) titles are one of the most important elements of a manuscript, influencing the reviewers’ decision and editors’ judgment, attracting the readers, and conveying the main idea of the article. Investigating 3197 RA titles published in 16 approved Iranian linguistic journals, this study aimed to map their pattern and portray their features of form and content. To this end, all the RA titles of the 16 Iranian journals publishing articles in applied linguistics up to 2022 (3197 titles) were collected. Then, they were analyzed for their length, presence of non-alphanumeric characters, syntactic structure, lexical diversity, as well as type and trend of information encoded.  Results show that RA titles in Iranian linguistic journals tend to be pretty long (average of 13.88) but mostly consist of non-repetitive words with high lexical diversity (.94). Authors mainly used colons (average of 82), hyphens (average of 79), and commas (average of 37) to form titles by nominal (average of 94) and compound (average of 82) grammatical structures. These titles mostly tended to embed information about the method, data, and results of the works and appeared to be highly informative. Interrelationships between features resulted in a checklist for RA title features that can be used by prospective researchers, academic writing instructors, and reviewers.

ChatGPT-assisted language instruction is gathering irresistible momentum in today’s fast-moving, AI-governed world of educational enterprises. The current scoping review article sought to analyze and synthesize the existing literature on the complementary use of ChatGPT in second/foreign language (L2/FL) education and pedagogy. Aligned with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA‑ScR), the study adopted a systematic approach to evidential data search and analysis. A total of 28 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from well-established databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), were reviewed to map the scope and consequences of the growing body of literature on using ChatGPT as an L2/FL learning/teaching tool. Centering around five predetermined variables, including setting, design, focus area, objective, and concluding remarks, the content or thematic analysis results helped to shape a clear picture of the literature under review. The literature-derived evidential data also referred to the fruits of ChatGPT-assisted instruction under three distinct headings: learning outcomes, pedagogical outcomes, and cognitive-affective impetus for language learning and teaching. The review results also revealed the repercussions of the instruction mainly concerned with ethical and technical concerns. Given the immature but fast-paced nature of the literature on the instructional model, this early attempt, though provided a brief sketch of the research scope and chief outcomes of the model, needs to be complemented with future systematic reviews to fully unlock the potential of language pedagogy well suited to the demands of today’s technology-governed education.